Beach Hut Renovations: "That'll Hold"

This final 2-week session of our summer program has been on Thomas' mind for some time now. This was the session during which we decided to exclude the "little kids" (his term for the 2-year-olds). One of the things that seemed to excite him the most was the prospect of adding a second story to our beach hut (aka "the castle," "the club house," "the fort," or simply "the house"), a project he seems to think was too dangerous to undertake with the little kids around.

I don't seem to have a current photo. It's much more built-out than this, but

you get the idea.

I happen to know that this structure, without fairly substantial reinforcement, is not capable of supporting a second floor. We built the original frame on a shipping pallet, over which we nailed lengths of old fencing planks to make a floor.

The adults added 2X4's as corner posts, then used more fencing planks (a neighbor was replacing his fence) to finish it out.

We've been adding all manner of things to this structure over the past few months, from pulleys and a sewer system, to partial walls, window screens, and a burlap bag roof. And while it's been a target for quite a number of improvements, it hasn't really been used much for dramatic play. The reason was well-illustrated last week when Ella decided to set up a tea party. By the time she got a table and two chairs in there, she barely had room to move. So while a second story may be out of the question for the time being, more space is something worth considering.

We have another pallet-floor available, but I already find it quite useful for other purposes.

As a moveable platform, I use it to re-define space outdoors.

It's a great place to position things like the cookie tree.

We like having a relatively flat place to build things or

drive cars . . .

. . . or just set up interesting "loose part" vignettes.

One of my routes to and from school (I have a few routes -- driving the same roads day after day makes me insane) takes me through the industrial Sodo district of Seattle. There are always clean shipping pallets leaned against warehouse walls for the taking, so I grabbed one on Wednesday because if we were going to add a room, we would need to start with a floor. This time, however, it wasn't going to be the adults who built it. This was a job for the kids.

Nia's dad Greg helped them use a tape measure to figure out how long our planks needed to be, assisted in drawing lines with a ruler where they needed to cut, then supported them in using the jigsaw to do the cutting.

You'll notice that 1) eye protection is being worn, 2) the wood

is secured with clamps, and 3) Greg is controlling the tool

by holding the motor while the child depresses the trigger.

Then it was time for hammering. A few of the kids were worried about the "noisy" saw, and opted to skip that part of the process, but the "noisy" hammering was less of a problem. Some of the children started their own nails, but Greg and I partially drove most of the nails to get the kids started, as well as to hold the planks in place so they wouldn't slide around as the kids worked.

Thomas declared, "That'll hold," before pounding the bent

nails down into the wood.

Again, you'll notice safety glasses for all, plus as an added measure, we marked off our construction area with caution cones, warning anyone who entered the area that they would need eye protection, even if they were just watching.

So now we have our new platform, already christened with a little late summer drizzle.

This is every bit as good as the ones we adults built. With just one more week of our summer program to go, I'm curious to see where this remodeling project takes us.